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AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY


BEING RAMBLING RECOLLECTIONS OF
MANY YEARS OF MY LIFE


BY

M. E. W. SHERWOOD

AUTHOR OF "MANNERS AND SOCIAL USAGES"
"A TRANSPLANTED ROSE" ETC.


Howells, Stops of Various Quills, 1895 vi large c.jpg



NEW YORK

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS

1897

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CONTENTS

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CHAPTER I.

Early Days in New Hampshire — My Father and Mother — Mr. Emerson's School at Boston — Daniel Webster at Marshfield — Visit to Washington — "Tyler Too" — Charles Dickens — Along the Ohio and Down the Mississippi — The Carved Oxen at Nauvoo — Joseph Smith and the Mormons Page 1
 

CHAPTER II.

Visit to Dubuque and the Wisconsin Prairies — A Steamboat Trip through the Great Lakes with Mr. Van Buren and J. K. Paulding — Chicago and Mayor Ogden — James Russell Lowell and Maria White — A Visit to the "Experiment" at Brook Farm — Mr. Ripley, Mr. Curtis, Hawthorne, and Margaret Fuller 28
 

CHAPTER III.

Washington in the Forties — General Franklin Pierce — The Mexican War — John Quincy Adams, Lincoln, Calhoun, Benton, and Clay — A Sight for Northern "Doughfaces" — The 7th. of March Speech — Chester Harding — Two Stories of Webster — President Taylor's Inauguration — State Balls and Dinners — The Society of the Capital Half a Century Ago 41
 

CHAPTER IV.

Early Simplicity in Dress and Manners — My Wedding-dress and my Marriage — A Novel Wedding Trip — St Thomas and Santa Cruz — A Celebrated Lawsuit and a Unique Christmas Festival — Havana — Rachel, the Famous French Actress, Visited the United States in 1854 — Fanny Kemble — Thackeray's Visit to America — The Purchase and Restoration of Mount Vernon 58
 

CHAPTER V.

The Visit of the Prince of Wales — The Ball at the Academy of Music — The First Days of the War — The Sanitary Commission — The Metropolitan Fair — Washington in 1863 — General McClellan and the French Princes — A Ball at the White House and Picnics in Camp Page 85
 

CHAPTER VI.

Some Memories of Distinguished People — The New England Literati — Mrs. Sigourney and Miss Sedgwick — Dr. Bellows and the Transcendentalists — Mr. Bryant's Dinners — Recollections of Booth — The Iago Dress — Chief-Justice Chase — Sherman and Grant — Adelaide Ristori 96
 

CHAPTER VII.

A Glimpse at Literary Boston — Prescott, Emerson, and Agassiz — Darley's Picture of Washington Irving and His Friends — The Knickerbocker Magazine — Mrs. Botta's Salon — Reminiscences of Bancroft and Bryant — A Birthday at the Century Club — Longfellow 117
 

CHAPTER VIII.

My First Visit to England — Chester Cathedral — Sunshine in London — Westminster Abbey and the British Museum — English Art — At the English Dinner table — Our American Hospitality an Inherited Virtue — Oxford, Kenilworth, and Stratford-on-Avon — The English Attitude towards America 133
 

CHAPTER IX.

The Social Side of London — Sir William Stirling-Maxwell and Sir John Bowring — Mr. Motley and General Adam Badeau — A Visit to Hampton Court — Racial Characteristics and Differentiation — The Lord Byron Scandal Again — A Page of Unwritten History — Across the Channel to Paris 147
 

CHAPTER X.

A Little Journey in the Land of William Tell — Basle and Lucerne — On the Way to Interlaken — The Jungfrau and the Giesbach — ​Byron and Voltaire — Geneva and Mont Blanc — An Ascent of the Brevent — Over the Simplon Road and through the Gorge of Gondo — On the Italian Slope Page 157
 

CHAPTER XI.

The New York of Twenty Years Ago — Social and Geographical Changes — Grace Church and "Old Brown" — Three of New York's Distinguished Hostesses — Mrs. Roberts's Dinner to President and Mrs. Hayes — Mr. Evarts and his Donkey Story — Travers and Jerome — Bret Harte — George Boker and Calvert — Our School for Scandal 177
 

CHAPTER XII.

Second Visit to London — A Day in the House of Commons — London in 1885 — The Ascot Races and Dr. Holmes — My Presentation at Court and a State Ball at Buckingham Palace — A Supper with Irving at the Beefsteak Club — Mr. Gladstone and the Chapel Royal — A Dinner with Sir John Millais — Mr. Browning, Sir Frederic Leighton, Mrs. Procter, and Du Maurier 201
 

CHAPTER XIII.

My Continental Note-book — The Praise of Paris — Meissonier and Politics — The Salon of 1886 — "Varnishing Day" — Sara Bernhardt's "Theodora" — Nice and Monte Carlo — La Duchesse de Pomar, Lady Caithness — A Sad Loss to the American Colony 222
 

CHAPTER XIV.

Imperial Rome — The American Colony — W. W. Story, Bishop Whipple, and the Terrys — My Presentation at the Italian Court — A Ball at the Quirinal — Lord Houghton — Two Valentines — Modern Rome — The Vatican Library and Gardens 239
 

CHAPTER XV.

The Queen's Jubilee — London in Gala Dress — The Queen's Garden Party — A Dash into Holland and the Low Countries — Dikes and Ditches — Picture-galleries and Windmills — Rotterdam and Amsterdam — The Zuyder Zee and a Day at Marken — Forgotten Bruges and Prosperous Ghent — Antwerp and The Hague — Ostend the Frivolous 265
 

CHAPTER XVI.

In Praise of Aix-les-Bains — Its Cures and Its Amusements — Rousseau's House — La Grande Chartreuse and Its Famous Liqueur — An Exercise in Russian Linguistics — The Marriage of the DuC d'Aosta — A Mediaeval Fête — The Queen of Italy and Her Royal Graces — The House of Savoy and Its Early Home at Aix — English Visitors — Princess Beatrice's Birthday 291
 

CHAPTER XVII.

Letters from Spain — Barcelona and Tarragona — Roman, Carthaginian, and Moorish Antiquities — The Land of Don Quixote — Cordova and Its Mosque — Granada and the Alhambra — Fair Seville — The Donkey in Spain 319
 

CHAPTER XVIII.

Letters from Spain to Friends at Home — Further Thoughts of Madrid — At the Bull-flght — Toledo, the Majestic Crown of Spain — The Cathedral and Its Memories — Moorish Houses and Toledo Blades — The Escorial — The Library — The Pantheon — Burgos and Farewell to Spain 338
 

CHAPTER XIX.

An Imaginary Conversation with an Editor — The Effect of Fashion on our Social Life — Our American Society and Its Leaders — Snobs and Snobbery — Society and Its Mission in Our National Life — King Fashion and His Power — A Last Word 363

This work was published before January 1, 1927, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.

 
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